News

OTTAWA, January 18, 2002 (LSN.ca) – Statistics Canada released its abortion statistics for 1999 today but noted that abortions for the province of Ontario were not included due to “changes in reporting requirements in Ontario.” The report notes that “women in provinces and territories other than Ontario obtained 65,627 abortions in 1999, down 3.2% from 67,785 in 1998.” However, since Ontario usually accounts for about 40% of abortions in Canada (according to the agency), the quality of the federal agency’s report is severely undermined.

The ‘therapeutic abortion rate’, excluding Ontario, decreased to 31.8 abortions for every 100 live births in 1999 from 32.3 in 1998. Abortions were most common among women in their twenties, who accounted for 52% of all women who obtained abortions in 1999. On average, 27 women out of every 1,000 in their twenties obtained an abortion. Abortion rates decreased in the all provinces and territories reporting except Newfoundland and Manitoba from 1998 to 1999.

Jakki Jeffs, executive director of Alliance for Life Ontario told LifeSite that Ontario and British Columbia have been trying for years to avoid reporting abortion statistics. She noted that the current Statistics Canada report does not include demographic information specifying such things as how many abortions were repeat abortions and marital status. Jeffs said it was an outrage that the Ontario statistics are withheld since “abortion impacts women’s health and it is publicly funded.”

She noted that one reason why Ontario seems to be eliminating the paper trail on abortions may be to conceal eventual liability. Jeffs recalled that new studies are continuing to she detrimental effects of abortion. Ontario appears to be one of the very few governments in the world that withholds abortion statistics from its taxpayers who pay for all Ontario abortion services. The United Nation’s regular country-by-country abortion statistics will have to report a seriously incomplete statistic for Canada for 1999.

See the Statistics Canada release on abortions in 1999 at:  https://www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/020118/d020118d.htm